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Brain-neural computer interfaces on track to home Development of a practical generation of

BNCI for independent home use (proposal nº 288566)

ICT-2011-7 5.5c) ICT for smart and personalised inclusion

Brussels, 27th May 2011

Consortium presentation

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Partners (6)

Barcelona Digital Centre Tecnològic [SPAIN]

Technische Universitaet Graz [AUSTRIA]

University of Würzburg [GERMANY]

The Cedar Foundation [UNITED KINGDOM]

Guger technologies OG [AUSTRIA]

Telehealth Solutions Ltd. [UNITED KINGDOM]

http://portal.tugraz.at/

Coordinator (01) BDIGITAL

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• The eHealth R&D department applies Information technology to the health sector as an aid to medical personnel's work, simplifying illness prevention, diagnosis and treatment processes, developing bio-medical instrumentation, and helping attain better healthcare overall, as well as many other benefits. The eHealth team, lead by Mr Felip Miralles and responsible for coordination of 2 other FP7 projects (BrainAble, 247447 and Synergy-COPD, 270086), is currently composed by 15 staff people, four of them being PhD senior researchers.

Fundació Privada Barcelona Digital Centre TecnològicBarcelona (Spain)

Barcelona Digital Technology Centre is a technology centre specialised in the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

By today, BDIGITAL’s staff consists of 80 professionals with multidisciplinary and complementary background in the following areas of specialization: healthcare, security, mobility and energy, and food and environment.

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Role in BackHome:

BDIGITAL is the project coordinator, and leader of WP5 (Telemonitoring and home support) as research and technology provider in intelligent eHealth telemonitoring and home support tools.

BDIGITAL’s qualification for these roles derives from the experience of its personnel in R&D management. BDIGITAL will bring knowledge acquired in related projects such as BrainAble (FP7), Neurorehabilitation 3E+D, Circles of Care and Digital Primary Care.

Coordinator (01) BDIGITAL

The Project Management Office (PMO) of BDIGITAL, led by Mrs. Bernadette Grabenbauer-Nagl, runs all central administrative and coordination activities on non-technical matters related to projects, such as: set-up and maintenance of guidelines, procedures and structures for communication and documentation, administrative and financial management and controlling,, logistics and preparation of meetings minutes and documentation of meetings, coordination of inputs on IPR and ethics and the support to the projects teams in the mediation and resolution of conflicts

(Partner 02) TUG

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Graz University of Technology200 years 1811-2011

Krenngasse 37/IV8010 Graz, Austria

Tel: +43 316 873 5301, Fax: +43 316 873 5349Mail: [email protected] / Home: http://bci.tugraz.at/

Institute for Knowledge DiscoveryLaboratory of Brain-Computer Interfaces

… BCI research since 1991

mailto:[email protected]

http://bci.tugraz.at/

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The BCI Lab is one of the leading labs in brain-computer communication. It is an internationally renowned research institution with a research focus on brain-computer communication, dynamics of brain oscillations and evoked potentials.

More specifically, the lab has extensive expertise in EEG recording, offline and online processing of brain signals and other biosignals (ECG, EMG, …) in general, feature extraction, detection and classification of brain patterns, and neurofeedback systems. Furthermore, our expertise ranges from software development, experimental design to clinical application.

Research areas

(Partner 02) TUGEuropean Projects

• The BCI Lab recently completed the EU projects:

Presenccia (2006-2009) and Eye-To-IT (2006-2009)

• Our group is currently involved in the EU projects:

TOBI (2008-2012), DECODER (2010-2012), BETTER (2010-2013), BrainAble (2010-2012), and Future BNCI (2010-2011)

• National Projects:FWF, Land Steiermark, AUVA

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Role in BackHome:

(Partner 02) TUG

• Leverage its very strong experience with BNCI research, telemonitoring and human-subjects research within this project

• TUG will lead WP3 (BNCI systems) and WP4 (practical electrodes)

• TUG will contribute to all other WPs except management.

(Partner 03) UNIWUE

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The University of Würzburg will be mainly represented by its Department of Psychology, where Prof. Kübler holds the professorship of intervention psychology.

The department has fully equipped psychophysiology laboratories with EEG and peripheral measures such as heart rate, skin conductance, and EMG; altogether 10 laboratories exist for experiments with patients and healthy volunteers.).

The University of Würzburg has a large university hospital with different outpatient clinics for patients. Thus, patients for pilot testing and further training will be available locally.

At present UNIWUE is partner of the EU-project TOBI (2008-2012) and DECODER (2010-2013). Gained knowledge will be directly incorporated in BackHome. In both projects evaluation plays a key role.

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Role in BackHome:

(Partner 03) UNIWUE

• UNIWUE leads WP6 (User evaluation and home testing) and will strongly contribute to WP3 and WP4. Prof. Kübler and her team have extended experience on applying BCIs to severely impaired and locked-in patients at their home and in evaluation of BCI by end-users. Due to her long standing experience with conducting research with severely impaired, locked-in and even non-responsive patients.

• Prof. Kübler will also provided expert guidance to the Ethical aspects of the BackHome Project (this includes the generation of a deliverable on the adherence to ethical guidelines)

(Partner 04) CF

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• Established in 1941

• Registered Charity & Company Limited by Guarantee

• Services for people with Physical Disability / Brain Injury

• Regional Organisation / 23 service locations

• Budget £6.5m

• 250 Staff

• 1,700 Service Users

www.cedar-foundation.org

The Cedar Foundation’s Vision is a society in which disabled adults and children are fully included citizens.

Our Mission is to provide quality support, care, accommodation and training services to enable disabled adults and children to participate in all aspects of community life.

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Role in BackHome: enabling user participation

(Partner 04) CF

• Ethical governance

• Mainly involved in WP5 (Telemonitoring and home support) and WP6 (user evaluation and home testing), CEDAR will promote and enhance users participation: supporting engagement of people with acquired brain injury in BackHome

• Facilitating user centred design for technical innovation

(Partner 05) GTEC

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SME in Austria that develops and sells systems for the acquisition and processing of biosignals.

g.tec is a private company that was established 1999 as a spin-off of the University of Technology Graz, Austria.

g.tec’s staff consists of about 30 professionals with multidisciplinary and complementary background in biomedical engineering, informatics, signal processing and neural engineering.

One of the most important products is a brain-computer interface for non-invasive and invasive usage.

g.tec is involved in the following operative European projects developing BCI technology:

• BrainAble, Decoder, Better, Vere, SM4all

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Role in BackHome:

(Partner 05) GTEC

g.tec is the leader of WP2 System integration and presentation to ensure a seamless combination of system components.

g.tec is leading the Rapid prototyping platform, the State of the art review and Development and integration of a complete practical electrode and amplifier system tasks.

g.tec has a complete development team for software and hardware components for electrodes, amplifiers and real-time processing software in house.

Cofinancing of BackHome: g.tec will co-finance BackHome with it’s own capital. g.tec is currently selling products together with 20 sales partners worldwide and is increasing its turnover every year significantly.

(Partner 06) THSL

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Formed 2006, Telehealth Solutions Limited specialises in the design and application of telehealth solutions for deployment within healthcare services in the UK and overseas. The company has an established track record in sales to NHS with approximately 30 staff and operates its own medical call centre.To fulfil its objectives, the company currently offers several product lines:• The Surgery Pod enables patients,

without clinical supervision, to perform their own tests which post directly into their patient record..

• The Home Pod provides clinical monitoring of patients in their homes, without expert supervision.

• The Cardio Pod is an easily portable system which facilitates public health screening services.

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Role in BackHome:

(Partner 06) THSL

Telehealth Solutions is leader of WP7 - Exploitation and Dissemination and is the provider of the telehealth element of the project, including local data acquisition, transmission, triage, recording and clinician presentation. THSL participates actively in design and implementation tasks within WP5 Telemonitoring and home supportPost-development, the

company will lead the commercialisation of the solution The company offers solutions across the whole spectrum of the health triangle, with the exception of the highest, continuous care area where no current benefit can be derived

NotApplicable

Home Systems

Kiosk Systems

Community Systems

Partners expertiseThe consortium represents all necessary competences to carry out the project (no subcontracting is foreseen in BackHome for the content tasks) and the distribution of work and responsibility reflects the competence-based assignment of work

Coordination. R&D on eHealth, mobility and security, and more specifically, on support technologies for neurorehabilitation, AmI and ubiquitous computing, interoperable and accessible devices, KM and ontologies, web 2.0, security and integrity of data.

BCIs based on different approaches, signal processing, affective computing, BCIs in virtual and real environments, BCIs with patients.

User evaluation and home testing. Application of BCIs to severely impaired and locked-in people at their homes. Evaluation of BCI by end users. Capture of user requirements.

Enabling user participation. Ethical governance. Telemonitoring and home support. User evaluation and home testing. Promotion and enhancement of user participation. Supporting engagement of people with acquired brain injury. Facilitating user centred design for technical innovation.

Biomedical engineering, biofeedback, human-computer communication systems, BCI and affective computing

Design and implementation of telehealth systems for home. Devices interfacing, API design and implementation for multi-platform interfaces to instruments and remote systems. Clinical and patient user interface (CUI, PUI) design and implementation. Exploitation of technology to public and private sector.

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http://portal.tugraz.at/

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Organisation BNCIsPractical electrod

es

Telemonitoring, home support

Smart homes

End users in homes

BDIGITAL X XX XXX X

TUG XXX X XX X XXX

UNIWUE XXX X XX X XXX

CEDAR X X XX XX XXX

G.TEC XXX XXX XX XX XX

THSL XXX XXX XX

Consortium competencies (X = some expertise; XX = strong expertise; XXX = top institute)

Partners expertise

Motivation & Concept

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Socio-economic problem

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Brain disorders cause 35% of the burden of all European disorders

• EU: incidence of SCI is 3 per 100.000 (1500 a year in Germany).

• EU: incidence of TBI is estimated 180 and 200 cases per 100.000 inhabitants per year.

• Germany: 300.000-400.000; Italy: 250.000-300.000 live with Parkinson’s disease.

• EU: Stroke incidence 150 per 100.000 inhabitants.

• 7.000-8.000 people are newly diagnosed with ALS each year.


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• SCI, TBI, stroke generate physical functional diversity. In many of the cases, despite rehabilitation, subjects remain with motor deficit that restrain their participation, challenge their social inclusion and impair their quality of life.

• Brain injury, in addition to causing cognitive impairment, will make the aging process even harder, increasing behavioural impairment and enhancing risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and others degenerative CNS diseases.


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• Modern societies recognise their commitment of taking care of all citizens, but new and innovative approaches are necessary to assist with the forecast burden of care and to guarantee the sustainability of the healthcare system.

• There is a need to anticipate hospital discharge.

• The transition to the home is often very difficult and traumatic; there is little or no support for transitional rehabilitation systems, telemonitoring or tools to keep in touch with key people.

Solving concept

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To advance existing BNCI systems into a more practical solution for home use:

• software and hardware development

• applied research for defining outcome measures

• basic research into BNCI-elicited brain plasticity

• maintenance and restoration of cognitive and physical functioning.

• more efficient BNCI in a community setting

• more commercially competitive products

• practical electrodes

• telemonitoring and software support

• easy-to-use applications to facilitate activities of daily living and entertainment

• improvement of social integration and quality of life

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General objectives:

• To study the transition from the hospital to the home, focusing on how people use BNCIs in both settings

• To learn how different BNCIs and other assistive technologies work together

• To learn how different BNCIs and other assistive technologies can help clinicians, people with functional diversity and family in the transition from the hospital to the home

• To reduce the cost and hassle of the transition from the hospital to the home by developing improved products and disseminating information for different developers and users.

• To produce applied results, developing:

• a new and better integrated practical electrode system• friendlier and more flexible BNCI software• better telemonitoring and home support tools• a better support infrastructure

Solving concept

Technical, operational and legal feasibility

• BNCI, AmI, social networks, smart homes – experts inside the consortium that work already in the field

• Deep knowledge of state of the art

• New Science and technology based on experience in the field

• Monitoring of developments in the field to avoid legal problems

• Partners have experience with people using BNCI technology

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Validation with intended users

• Defining users to ensure diversity of sample

• Individual needs• Age• ICT knowledge and experience• Setting/environment• Prognosis and diagnosis

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• Subjective and objective measures of validation, for example

– Communicative Ability – Social Inclusion– Self esteem– Independence – Health and well being

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TOBI

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QUEST: Reasons for Dissatisfaction

• Dimensions: „the cap covers too much of the head“, „The cap is uncomfortable

when lying in bed“

• Adjusting the cap and electrodes:

o takes long, takes 0,5-1hour of the available time

o Is „uncomfortable“ (adjustment)

o Need to wash the hair afterwards

Hardware: „a lot of different parts to set up“

Software: „very technical, not really for end users“

• Effectiveness More elaborated programs on the market

• Speed Not fast enough (5 times faster would be ok)

• Aesthetic Design Cap: “Very visible. That is a little bit embarrasing.“

„I do not want too much attention drawn on me“.

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• Systematic evaluation of BCI use in home environment – user groups, compliance

• High performance when using an application

• However, some users have only moderate or not enough control on certain days.

• Uncontrollable noise – failure to record EEG

• Patient may not be able to conduct a session albeit scheduled.

• User satisfaction with Brain Painting is rather high and users would like to use it in daily life.

• Moderate user-satisfaction with BCI-controlled Qualilife software – not usable in daily life unless faster and less complicated

• The hardware (EEG cap, electrodes/gel, electrode hurt) imposes the greatest obstacles.

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• Objectives– specifying BCI requirements

from a user’s point of view– definition of usability goals– summary of requirements– providing templates for

evaluation– measures on 3 levels

• technical• practical• psychological

– N=20 end-users in real world scenarios

Documents

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